Chapter Nineteen

Delilah found herself in the confidential quiet of Kaid’s chamber once more. The spicy scent of him lingered in the air, declaring everything his, from the ornately carved chairs before the fire to the massive bed.

It was the bed which constantly drew her attention.

There was something very intimate about being in a place where a man lived, where he slept.

Her gaze flicked toward the bed.

Where he loved.

She tried not to let her heart wince at the last thought.

“Our plan needs to be a quick one.” Her voice seemed almost too loud for the comfortable silence in the room.

Good. She needed the distraction from the thoughts of the innocent kiss she’d bestowed upon him the last time she was here, and how she’d wanted so much more.

But now was not for loving. Now was for war.

For saving the MacLeods from another massacre.

Her gaze shifted from the bed to the shuttered windows where the night loomed black beyond.

Kaid stood close to her. She could sense the nearness of his body against her back.

Delilah forged her resolve into iron before she turned to face him. “It was Lady Elizabeth’s father who paid me to stand in her place. He knows nothing of you—only that MacKenzie has enemies who might use Elizabeth as a means to get at him.”

She didn’t mention Sylvi or Liv, or even the other girls who had not come on the journey—there was no need. Keeping their secrets was the least she could do for them after this incredible betrayal.

“But Lady Elizabeth is still traveling toward MacKenzie,” she continued. “We have little more than a week before she arrives at Edirdovar Castle.”

Kaid frowned. “It will take two days to reach it from here.”

“I know,” Delilah replied. “I’d done all the calculations. It’s two days for a man on a horse, but I’ll be playing a lady who rides in a carriage. The trip will take closer to three days. I’ll have to leave in the morning. If I can get there quickly, it will allow more time to find Torra. I want to be gone before the true Elizabeth arrives.”

Kaid stiffened and shifted his gaze from her.

“I dinna like it,” he said finally. “I thought we’d have more time.”

“Time would give us nothing, but a longer wait for everything to be resolved.” She was right, of course. She knew as much, and certainly he did as well.

But he stared hard at her with emotion burning bright in the blue of his eyes. “I dinna like that ye have to do this.” He stepped toward her, close enough for his body to blot out the heat of the fire and replace it with his own.

“It’s your plan.” Her voice was softer now, unintentionally so—as if her body was aware of an intimacy her mind had not yet caught.

He brushed his fingertips against her face. She closed her eyes to better revel in the caress. Her lips lifted in a coy smile. “Do you really think I’d let him hurt me?” She opened her eyes and found him staring down at her with a sad expression.

“I dinna want ye there alone. I want to be with ye.” He continued cupping her jaw and stepped close enough for her skirts to tickle against his shins.

“You know you cannot.” Delilah stared up at him, wanting him to see the truth in her words as she spoke them. “But you can trust me.”

“I do trust ye.” His thumb stroked against her cheek, and something desperate showed in his gaze. “But if something happens to ye and I’m no’ there to protect ye—”

“Nothing will happen to me.” Delilah spoke with confidence. For surely it was easy to don when the chaos of reality lay outside a closed bedroom door.

He stared down at her for a long moment before his mouth came down on hers, hungry and fierce.

Surprise only caught her for a brief moment before she let herself be drowned in the lust she’d been pushing off since their arrival at Ardvreck. She slid her fingers through the silkiness of Kaid’s hair. Their kisses were frantic with lips and tongues and teeth.

Her nipples tingled beneath her bodice with each excited brush against his chest, and the place between her legs pounded with a desperate need.

“I want ye.” Kaid’s admission came out in a groan between eager kisses. He pulled back and his eyes met hers. “I want ye, Delilah.”

Delilah.

Joy bubbled around her heart. She could have laughed with the happiness of hearing him say her name. Wanting her.

Not Elizabeth. Her.

He stroked the hair away from her forehead and let his hand glide down the back of her head. “I told ye—ye’re exquisite.” He came toward her so she had to step backward.

Toward the bed.

Delilah sucked in a gasp.

Kaid edged her back until the hard frame of the bed pushed against her calves. He leaned over her, and she allowed herself to lay back on the pillowed surface of Kaid’s bed.

The fur coverlet was soft beneath her palms and it was altogether too easy to imagine herself naked atop it.

Kaid braced himself over her. “Ye’re a beautiful woman, Delilah.” He kissed her with such tenderness, it almost made her cry out with its teasing, agonizing slowness.

He sucked her bottom lip into his mouth and then drew back with a playful grin she’d not seen on him before. Something about it warmed low in her stomach.

“So eager, my beautiful warrior?” he said in a velvet voice. “We rushed last time. This is different. We have the night together to love.”

He pulled the ribbon of her bodice until the delicate silk bow slipped free. “I want to take my time with ye. To see ye.” His gaze drifted down her body, and her cheeks began to burn.

“I want to touch ye.” He slid a hand up her skirt and teased the delicate flesh of her inner thighs.

Delilah’s legs widened, unbidden.

He ran a fingertip to where her legs met, where the source of her desire thrummed wild and erratic, and she cried out with eager pleasure.

Then, to her great surprise, he lifted the damp fingertip to his lips and grazed it with his tongue.

“I want to taste ye,” he said.

Before she could answer, before rational thought even jarred back into her mind, he knelt between her legs and pressed his mouth to her.

A quiet cry left her lips, but she did not pull from his caress.

Not even when he repeated it with his tongue.

He dragged it slowly over the delicate slit, pausing to flick the swollen bud, directly where her body hummed with desire. Everything tightened with a familiar anticipation.

She said his name, and it came out in a strangled moan.

At that one beautiful moment of bliss, nothing mattered but the flat of his tongue against her and the need building.

Her fingers wound through his hair and held him to her while her body trembled. His tongue danced over her once more, and she thought she might go mad with wanting, mad with being so close but not falling over the edge.

He slid a finger inside her while his skillful tongue worked, and her world exploded with tingling pleasure.

He did not stop until her cries subsided and her body relaxed with another kind of languid longing.

She wanted him.

For the last night she was at Ardvreck, before she might possibly never see him again, she wanted him.

Kaid obviously was of the same mind, for he rose from between her legs with a slight smile on his lips and slid off the belt of his plaid. Both fell away, leaving him in only his leine, which he smoothly pulled over his head in one tug.

Delilah’s mouth went dry.

She’d felt the muscles beneath his clothing when they’d lain together, even when he’d held her before. But to bear witness to his beauty was another thing entirely.

His shoulders, arms, and chest were carved with muscle and his stomach went flat in tapered bands that seemed to become more pronounced when he breathed. His hips were narrow, his thighs powerful, and…

Delilah, who thought herself long past being a silly girl, warmed with the heat of a blush when her gaze lingered over the length of his hard phallus.

She slid off the bed, and her heavy skirts slipped back over her legs once more. She let her mouth curl into a seductive grin and slipped a finger under the lace of her bodice before slowly pulling it free.

He’d shown himself to her in all his beautiful magnificence.

And now it was her turn.

• • •

The undressing of a woman had never been so sensual as Delilah’s careful disrobing.

Kaid had had his share of women, of course, but he had enjoyed many without the ceremony of having their clothing slowly stripped away.

Delilah pulled free all the lacings on her bodice and let it hit the ground with a hard thunk. Next came the heavy skirts which rustled like parchment in the quiet room. Then came the heavy corset which eased the rigid stiffness of her frame and left the pink of her nipples visible beneath the thin fabric of her sark.

He took great pleasure in the gradual revealing of flesh, the tease of what was to come. Though he’d had her before, he found himself waiting with strained eagerness for the removal of each item.

She stayed a moment in her sark, watching him before easing the hem over her ankles, her shapely calves, her slender, perfect knees. He didn’t know if he’d ever noticed knees being perfect before, but hers were decidedly so.

Higher still revealed the slender gap between her legs. His heart pounded with thundering anticipation. The triangle of dark hair between her legs came next, then the flare of her rounded hips and the narrow indent of her waist.

Kaid folded his arms over his chest to keep from touching her. The last thing he wanted was to interrupt the tantalizing view.

The sark rose high over the expanse of her ribcage and displayed full, lovely breasts. He ran his tongue across the seam of his lips.

Finally, she cast the sark aside, where it whispered to the floor in a graceful heap of fabric.

Delilah was beautiful. Far more so than even his imagination could attempt to supply. Her body was made firm by her ability to fight, lines of lean muscle apparent in the glow of the fire.

Though there was evidence of her true strength, there was still the alluring softness of femininity—the swell of her hips, the roundness of her breasts, the curve of her perfect bottom.

He wanted to trace her body, memorize every luscious contour. He wanted to draw her, to capture her incredible beauty.

But sketching could come later.

He closed the distance between them and skimmed his fingers over her flat stomach. Her nipples hardened and she gave a quiet gasp.

He met her gaze. “Every part of ye is beautiful.”

Spots of color showed on her cheeks. “Every part of you is as well.”

He almost grinned, but her touch moved to his chest and slowly dragged down his stomach to where his cock strained toward her. His amusement melted into a groan of longing.

Unabashed in that brave way of hers, she let her fingers curl around him before stroking up his length.

“Ye’re going to drive me mad, lass.” He spoke the words between his teeth.

Her lips slipped into a sly grin. “That’s the point.”

She lowered herself to the floor, kneeling in front of him so his cock jutted toward her face. Her hand continued to stroke him in slow glides.

She looked up at him and licked her lips.

Her moistened lips parted, and she drew her tongue in a teasing flick over the head of his cock. A grunt jerked from his chest.

She dragged her tongue over him again, tracing the underside of his cock in a slow glide.

He wanted to be inside her mouth, where she would be hot and wet. “Open yer lips,” he said through gritted teeth.

She looked up at him and parted her mouth.

He groaned at the whisper of her sweet breath against his fevered skin. “Take me in yer mouth.”

She gave him a half-smile and obeyed. Her lips closed around him and her tongue played over his cock.

Sweat prickled on his brow. He wanted to tell her to suck, but couldn’t think to form the words.

She eased her lips back over him and then drew him deep once more before repeating the process. His bollocks tightened with the need to release.

But, no, he wanted to feel her body beneath him, squeezing him in her own climax.

He caught the silky weight of a full breast in his palm and teased over the hard nipple with his thumb. Her brows flinched and her muffled whimper hummed against his cock.

Her sensual mouth stroking against his cock, the allure of her beautiful body, the sound of her longing—it was all more than he could bear. Though he’d promised himself he’d take his time with her, the reality was becoming more impossible by the second.

“On the bed.” His voice was low and throaty.

Delilah drew him from her lips and eased backwards onto the bed, her fevered gaze fixed on him the entire time. He shadowed her progress until she lay atop the furs and he’d climbed over her.

She moved restlessly beneath him, her hips rolling as they had when they’d lain together before.

He claimed her mouth and let his body come to rest atop her. Her skin was silky, beautiful. He wanted to sink into her, to love her until the light of dawn spilled over their bodies.

She moaned and spread her legs to cradle his hips. His shaft lay against the entrance of her sex. It damn near drove him mad with the power of his want.

He shifted his hips back so the tip of his cock nudged against the juncture between her legs. Delilah arched her hips at the same time he thrust inside her, sheathing so hard, so deep that a cry of pleasure tore from them both.

She clutched him with her thighs and moved with mindless passion. Her nails raked sharp against his back and left him tingling with a delicious sting which only heightened his lust.

She was so tight, squeezing, flexing, moving with him. Their breath tangled with one another and their teeth bumped against lips with the force of their uncontrollable kisses.

Delilah’s body tensed under his.

“Yes,” he growled. He eased his hips higher and let his body rub against the bud of her sex while he thrust.

She threw her head back and constricted around him, clenching again and again and again until the swelling heat of his own pleasure carried him over with her.

He groaned and buried himself as deep as he could go, reveling in the force of his own climax.

Afterward, he remained where he was for a long moment, holding her to him while letting his heartbeat calm.

When the delirium of passion eased its grip on them both, they stared at one another, lost in a moment of sated happiness.

Delilah was even more beautiful after they’d made love than before, if such a thing were possible. Her hair was a tousled cloud of honey-brown silk beneath her, her eyes were bright, and her lips turned slightly upward in a contented smile.

They stayed there for some time, trailing their fingers idly over each other’s bodies. Finally the pull of sleep tugged at Kaid and he curled her in the protection of his arms.

He concentrated on the silkiness of her skin, the comfort of their shared warmth, and tried hard not to think of what tomorrow would bring.

For tomorrow, she would be gone.

• • •

Dawn broke the sky and drew back the dreamy veil love had created.

Delilah didn’t want to wake, not when the alternative was to lie in Kaid’s embrace.

His arms were around her and his legs twined with hers. Her body was pleasantly warm against him. But it was more than just the bed she did not wish to leave—it was him.

Fight it though she might, wakefulness was coming to her.

Her mind began to race with thoughts for the day, preparations to make, plans for when she arrived at Edirdovar. It would be dangerous.

If she could not convince MacKenzie, or if he found out who she was, it would doubtless be her demise. Every step would have to be carefully trod.

There was so much to prepare to ensure her success.

She would need to pack, to plan, to say goodbye. She would also need to bathe before she left, but there’d be no time for the water to be heated. Surely the servants had risen long ago to prepare the coach for her departure. She would not leave them waiting, especially when there was already so little time to spare.

Kaid nuzzled his prickly jaw against her neck. Tingles of pleasure tickled over her skin.

How she wanted to stay here instead. But the MacLeods needed her. This had to be done.

She knew she should wake Kaid, but feared if she did, leaving would be all the more difficult. Perhaps impossible.

Instead she slipped from his arms into the chill of morning air and silently picked up her discarded clothing. She turned back to where Kaid still slept, his arms over the blanket where she’d been.

Where his love had been fulfilling and beautiful, reality was stark and ugly.

With a heart heavy by her own choices, she turned from the man she wanted and began to ready herself for a journey which might possibly lead to her death.